Mel Johnson

Some outstanding names there for supporting cast! But a period piece about Victoria wouldn't have to be all that much later; the "Pas de Quatre" happened in 1845. Victoria succeeded to the throne in 1837, and was married in 1840. Twenty-five still counts as "young" in my book

With Michael, that was always an easy question to answer: The very tallest one!

May she have eternal rest; May light perpetual shine upon her. +

May she have eternal rest; May light perpetual shine upon her. +

"Ropopo" was a euphemism used by dancers who had come up in the thirties and forties. All three syllables were said quickly,quietly, and with nearly no accent on one over the other. The age of fascinating euphemism is mostly over now.

Generally speaking, if somebody' a-settin' up thar, we used to call it "stulchik" (the little chair).

And remember, these schools/styles/methods never stayed the same way for very long. - Perhaps a run of only one or two generations of dancers, and dancer generations can run as briefly as five years.

Right, and it's written out in letterpress form in Dolin's book, Pas de Deux: The Art of Partnering.

That's my favorite, too, probably because it was the first one I learned. It's based pretty faithfully on the Ivanov, and funnily, it uses a cut in the "big music" because that section was devoted to "stage magic" in the original, only I think that they cut the wrong eight bars. The third restatement of the theme, with the woodwind arpeggios and crashing cymbals is much grander than the version that BR used. Also, the original SPF, Antonietts dell'Era was described by Petipa as "Madame no good"! But she could do pirouettes into arabesque, so that's why there are so many of those packed tightly together. Because she was not at the top of her technique and strength, having been dancing (and singing!) in comic operas for the years leading up to the new ballet, her technical material is relatively easy, so a ballerina can concentrate on perfection.

Kniaseff influenced a great many teachers, and his "floor barre" has been adapted by others, notably, in the US, Zena Rommett.

I think we're on the right track, seeking for both mazurka and cancan in the quadrille. I did go into YouTube and searched around on "mazurka", finding the file I think you meant as being especially good, and it was. It put me in mind of a very brief film clip I saw once, and found that under "Romanov family", showing the Tsar and his children dancing what looked very like a mazurka with their guests on board Royal Yacht Standart. The excursion into chaos, which became the cancan, was, I think at least in part, a manifestation of the democratization of the dance floor, until it became a form of choreographic anarchy.

I think that the URLs aren't quite right on those links, Nana. It sent me to videos on "Cats against climate change", "Closet door fail" and "aggressive atheism" or some such. I consoled myself with watching the Muppets performing "Bohemian Rhapsody". Well, at least Bohemia is closer to Poland. As I mentioned, Agnes de Mille made the connection from the mazurka to the can-can, and while I think she was reaching, she did bring up a couple of good points, like the high kicks being the outfall of the frappé movement on the "two" count of the pas de mazourke and the decline of the caller in ballroom dance, leading to personal expression in free style, which in the previous century had been strictly the province of the very upper classes, and inhabited the world of the minuet.

Actually, Nana, my source for the links to mazurka to can-can was Agnes de Mille. I think that she may have been stretching a point, but the crossover point may certainly be the French quadrille of the mid-19th century. I've actually danced both 18th- and 19th-century quadrilles at living history seminars and events. They're rather different animals, but they are what they are, and both "authentic". While I'm at this task, I might as well go into the various forms of "reality" that people who examine artifacts (and a dance is a cultural artifact) are always faced with. The public often asks, "Is it real?" Well, yes, it has dimension, it has weight, it occupies actual space in the space/time continuum, you can touch it and feel some of its properties, etc. (In the case of the dancers, if you touch one of them in the wrong place, it can earn a knuckle sandwich - they have feelings, too - another property of reality) One of my favorite memories is of the guy who asked me, at an 18th-century event, "Is that a real fire?" I replied, "I'm a man of few words, give me your hand." Another kind of reality is "authenticity". Well, yes, everything is authentically something. Now, the question becomes, is the artifact authentic to its environment? A computer sitting on a Georgian desk in an historic museum room display is a glaring anachronism. A computer sitting on a Georgian desk in a working 21st-century office is no big deal when it comes up against the authenticity standard. (You could argue, however, the economic bad sense in using 250-year-old furniture) "Is it original?" is where the standard becomes most demanding. Yes, it's from Poland, it's 350 years old, and it was intended to be danced by everybody, not just a trained band of professional entertainers working on a stage for the viewing enjoyment of spectators. It's nearly a quantum dimension of performing arts. The moment you set up the bifurcation of performer and audience, you've changed an essential aspect of the art. We could probably go back to the Ancient Greeks dancing the dithyramb, and to Aristopodes the Cranky, who just "aged out" of doing the actual dancing this year. "Aw, this here ain't nothin'. You shoulda seed me when I was younger, now I could show you some real dithyrambin'!!!" And thus, the first dance critic was created. In the representational world of dance, where a dance is replicated faithfully with all respects made to its original form and content, the result is frequently (not invariably) unwatchable, except by the cultural anthropology geeks like me among us. In presentational dance, and that's what we see onstage, the original has been modified to give shape and form to the original dance so that it can be viewed with some pleasure by the general audience. So, a French mazurka of the nineteenth century may be all very well, and "authentic" to its environment. Even Masowsze modified the original forms of Polish dance for presentation on a stage. Even the male variation in "Les Sylphides" is "authentic" in that it is danced to a piece of music specifically named "mazurka", and contains the balletized, idealized pas de mazourke in its vocabulary. Where I think that de Mille was coming from was the form and content of the nineteenth-century French quadrille. The first and third movements of that set of dances were, by the rule, always in triple meter. Usually, this meant 6/8, but is often heard and seen in notation as 3/4 or even 9/8. The Viennese version of the quadrille is a little different, featuring an additional duple meter movement. The eighteenth-century quadrille was a somewhat easier affair to recall than the later one, as it required the use of a "caller" who would call out the names of the figures and the steps rhythmically as the dance progressed. By the nineteenth century, the caller had dropped out of the urban ballroom dance, but persisted, and persists today in more rural forms of dancing, like American square dancing and English country dancing. (Ever try to dance the "Sir Roger de Coverley" to the "Black Nag"? It can be done, but it's not a happy pairing.) Anyway, I believe that de Mille's nexus point from quadrille to can-can came at the finale of the suite, which was invariably a galop. From a tombé-coupé first step, through the chassés of the second period, we get into the coda, when all hell breaks loose, and presentational steps abound, often at the discretion of the individual couples, the idea of a four-dancer set having broken down. A "mazurka" of sorts may have been executed in the Pantalon (movement I) or Poule (movement III), but the Finale is, by the mid-19th century, a freestyle chaos which must have been a lot of fun to dance, and also have had the delicious element of danger added to it. It has always struck me that ballroom dancing is really much more fun to do than to sit and watch. It's a lot like concerts of J.S. Bach. Sometimes the performers' love comes through to the audience, but all too often, it doesn't. On the other hand, I can sing or play Bach myself, and get entirely carried away with how enjoyable my experience is. I cannot speak for my auditors, but at least I have a good time!

Remember, this is etymology, not genealogy. It's the same sort of path one takes from the word "lump" and eventually makes it "job".

Remember, music and dance get transplanted very quickly. J.S. Bach wrote polonaises, not just Chopin. Some dance etymologists trace the can-can to the mazurka!

I have to concur with Hans. The last great character teacher in NYC was Yurek Lazowsky at the old Ballet Russe school. Ballet dancers doing character today are far too airborne. They have the pull-up all right, but they miss the idea that there has to be a push DOWN into the floor in order to achieve that.

That looks like the very old Beauchamp notation, which was known from about 1680 through 1780. It shorthanded (or footed, rather) what the dancers feet did, but only clues about what the rest of the body did. Floor planning of ballets became more formal, and the individual steps became more spelled-out in the Stepanov notation in use in Russia during the Imperial period. Today's Benesh notation and Labanotation are capable of extremely detailed recording of very tiny detail, but they take a lot of study in order to learn.

He was a character dancer, and hence, the turn-in is probably a teacherly joke from Legat about it. Shiryaev was also a grandson of Cesare Pugni. His name is also sometimes rendered "Shirayev".

It's kind of tough, given the small screen, but I think I could pick out Haynes Owens among the men, and Marjorie Mussman among the women.

Yes, Luis and Bobby "ruled" the last movement of Vivaldi in those days.

I don't know that "dramballet" is any more derogatory than "well-made play" (pièce bien fait), which used to be considered quite damning, except that playwrights kept using the style and construction because it works. It would not be a bad thing for choreographers and dancers to be able to essay such works successfully.

It suggests the question, "What did the other guys dance like?"

Yes, but Cecchetti as systematized is not Cecchetti from the horse's mouth, as it were. Even in period, those who set up the Cecchetti curriculum and syllabi were criticized for missing things in the training. As Peter Schickele observes, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi!"

Princess Elizabeth was an Automotive Vehicles Specialist with the British Army. She could drive 'em, she could fix 'em. She was the first Royal to have what most commoners could regard as a modern trade. As to the genealogy of the pas de trois dancers, just bear in mind that as far as ballet "text" is concerned, a character could be named "Hemingway Wodziehowicz" for all the difference it makes.

The Florestan pas de trois provides one example of one great choreographer borrowing from another and then massaging the steps so that the borrowing isn't quite so obvious. The entrée of the dance is freely lifted and modified from the pas de trois in Act I Swan Lake. Balanchine did this a lot, too, and when the "Paquita grand pas" variation began to become known to western audience, he was alleged to have said, "Now you see where I steal from!"